Star Tribune
YWCA Minneapolis sells downtown fitness facility to St. David’s Center in Minnetonka
Downtown Minneapolis’ longstanding YWCA building on Nicollet Mall is about to get a new owner.
St. David’s Center for Child and Family Development, a Minnetonka-based nonprofit that provides mental health and autism services to children, announced Saturday that it’s buying the 120,000-square-foot building.
The sale comes more than six months after the YWCA shocked the community with the news that it was closing its Uptown and downtown fitness centers and pools. The YWCA has existed on Nicollet Mall for nearly a century.
St. David’s Center, which works with 5,000 children a year in its preschool, mental health and autism services, plans to expand its programs to serve an additional 1,500 kids a year in the new building, helping it meet the rising demand for mental health help, leaders said.
“Families are struggling and children are struggling more than they ever had,” said Julie Sjordal, CEO of St. David’s. “We have to increase capacity in order to meet community need.”
The YWCA closed its downtown and Uptown buildings on Nov. 1. Some members urged the city, park district or county to buy the buildings to keep them open to the public, but city and Park Board leaders said they couldn’t afford to do so.
YWCA CEO Shelley Carthen Watson said in a statement that the nonprofit received three offers for the downtown building, including from private developers and other nonprofits, but the organization prioritized a deal that would keep its early childhood center open on site, which St. David’s will do. She declined to disclose any details on the potential sale of the Uptown facility, which is in the high-profile Hennepin Avenue corridor near W. Lake Street.
St. David’s and the YWCA signed a purchase agreement for the downtown building in February and hope to close the sale by summer, pending approvals from the state and Hennepin County due to previous bonding funding.
The two nonprofits declined to reveal the price of the one-acre site and building; property values aren’t listed in county records because the YWCA is tax-exempt.
The corner of Nicollet Mall has housed YWCA programs since 1929, though the current building dates to 1976 and was remodeled in 2016. The 80,000-square-foot YWCA Uptown opened in 1987.
As a result of the closures, the YWCA, which still operates a building in Midtown, laid off 45 employees — about 13% of its workforce. Like other nonprofits struggling financially after the COVID-19 pandemic, YWCA leaders said they faced membership declines, staffing shortages and rising expenses. The organization decided to move away from health and fitness to focus on child care, racial equity and youth programs.
The building closures also sent about 300 swimmers in the YWCA’s Otters and Masters swim teams scrambling to find new swimming clubs at pools including South High School and Southwest High School.
For St. David’s, the new building will be the largest site it has owned in its six decades. The nonprofit, which started in 1961 as a preschool at St. David’s Episcopal Church, has grown to one of the largest child mental health providers in Minnesota.
Sjordal said the organization started looking a year ago for a new building as mental health crises spiked during the pandemic. St. David’s also leases space from Westminster Presbyterian Church downtown and owns a 65,000-square-foot former school building in Minnetonka.
Both buildings are full, Sjordal said, and there are 1,800 children on a waiting list for programs, with some kids waiting six months to more than a year.
“In the last several years, we have just seen a growing need across the community for children’s mental health, for autism treatment, for pediatric therapies,” Sjordal said. “We’re out of space.”
Renovating YWCA Downtown
St. David’s will seek tax credits for the project, Sjordal said, while embarking on its largest capital campaign ever to drum up an estimated $9 million to renovate the YWCA facility, which also has 28 parking spots and a rooftop patio.
Most of the fitness areas will be converted into classrooms or treatment spaces and St. David’s may keep the pool to start aqua therapy, Sjordal said. St. David’s will lease about 20% of the building back to the YWCA to continue to operate its early childhood center.
Some of St. David’s programs will launch there later this year, but the building won’t be fully used until 2026 after a renovation starts next year, Sjordal said. She added that St. David’s plans to go to the Legislature next year with a state funding request while working to draw donations and grants.
St. David’s is still recovering from the pandemic, which caused its programs to shut down in early 2020. With program fees and medical assistance bringing in most of its revenue, St. David’s had to furlough about 200 employees. Now, the organization has about 520 employees and is still rebuilding to return to 2019 staffing levels, she said. St. David’s has increased pay, Sjordal added, to attract and retain employees as many nonprofits struggle with turnover.
The new downtown building will have 150 employees, including existing staff and new hires. The nonprofit, which had about a $27 million annual budget in 2023, has hired fundraisers and boosted efforts to obtain more grants as it moves into a new chapter with its expansion downtown.
“It’s a big change [for the YWCA building],” Sjordal said. “And yet I think the legacy will live on through the kind of work that will happen in that building.”
Police said they will be releasing details Monday about the shooting death of a 23-year-old man last week in New Hope.
Carnell Mark Johnson Jr., of Bloomington, was shot in the chest Thursday in the 7300 block of Bass Lake Road and died that same day at North Memorial Health Hospital, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
A police official said more information will be released about the shooting later Monday. No arrests have been announced.
The fledgling Minneapolis “safety-beyond-policing” department, which has been accused of mismanaging contracts with violence interrupters, is again under scrutiny for requesting nearly $1 million for a business owned by the sister of one of its staff members.
Unanswered questions about the Black Business Enterprises Fund and the purpose of the contract have repeatedly delayed a City Council vote on the contract.
Neighborhood Safety Director Luana Nelson-Brown came before the council’s administration oversight committee on Oct. 7 to argue for giving the business a one-year, $992,400 contract for “capacity building and compliance consulting services.” Black Business Enterprises Fund would use the money to employ a team of 17 experts to coach violence interrupters on financial literacy and how to comply with government accounting requirements.
“A good financial system allows organizations to track their spending accurately, ensuring that funds are used properly and enabling them to prepare regular reports that meet government expectations,” Nelson-Brown said. “It also streamlines invoice reimbursements, which allows us to make more timely payments, and it is necessary for audits and evaluation of program success. I also want to note that these are all things that have been identified as weaknesses.”
Nelson-Brown said the need for the contract is underscored by a lawsuit that accused the city of arbitrarily awarding millions of dollars to violence prevention groups without proper accounting, as well as the “Safe and Thriving Communities” report on building a comprehensive model of public safety. The city commissioned the Harvard University report after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
City Council members have also been pushing for greater accountability in the Neighborhood Safety Department, particularly after a whistleblower complaint shared with council members this year questioned the relationships between contract recipients and department staff. One of the whistleblower’s claims had to do with Black Business Enterprises Fund owner Nancy Korsah, and her sister, Neighborhood Safety Department staffer Georgia Korsah.
On Oct. 7, council members asked Nelson-Brown about that relationship, whether the business had experience working with nonprofits — particularly those that provide violence prevention services — and whether it is an organization capable of helping others build theirs.
Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw said she wasn’t aware of what the Black Business Enterprises Fund had done besides “having a gala.” Council Member Jeremiah Ellison said a review of the organization’s website raised a “red flag.”
A motorcyclist set off a three-vehicle crash on a central Minnesota highway and was killed, officials said Monday.
The wreck occurred about 10:40 p.m. Sunday north of Royalton on Hwy. 10, the State Patrol said.
The motorcyclist was heading east on Hwy. 10 and struck a fish house being pulled by a pickup truck driver. The motorcyclist, a 27-year-old man from Sauk Rapids, Minn., was thrown from his bike and struck a median pillar.
A car heading in the same direction hit the motorcycle.
Occupying the pickup were a 46-year-old driver from Rice, Minn., and a 43-year-old passenger, also from Rice. The car’s driver, a 34-year-old woman from Cobalt, was her vehicle’s only occupant.
Identities of all the people involved in the crash have yet to be released, and there is no word yet on whether anyone was injured other than the motorcyclist.
